Doublesight Read Online Free Page B

begin a shift. She knew that Arren's eyes stabbed her in the back as she stepped heavily downhill. She needed the lightness of her crow image. Focusing on change itself, Zimp kept her head up even as her legs shortened and the grass appeared to rise. She turned her hands out and arms up to catch the wind. She could sense her bones hollowing and contracting, her head thinning, and a beak growing outward from her nose and mouth. Then for just a moment before she left the security of the ground, Zimp heard a familiar voice.
    “Tonight we dance,” Zora said.
    Were the words coming from her head or from the wind? The last moment of a shift were often still, empty. The final metamorphosis from human to beast or beast to human could not be conceived on any level. When the Gods created the doublesight to remind humans and beasts of their grotesque interbreeding, there had to be a place of complete oneness with The Great Land. Fleeting as it was, that moment also reminded the doublesight of their connection to both human and beast, to the physical realm and the spirit realms. Zimp felt that euphoria at the exact moment she heard Zora's voice clearly dance into her mind. But a moment later, in full crow image, doubt set in. She couldn't dwell on the possibility. Too much human thought would cause her to shift back.
    Zimp kept her human thoughts just behind her crow instinct. She recognized the humans below her, but did not place memories or emotions too closely with any of them. She glided over their heads for a moment longer, then lifted into the sky to get a clearer view of the distant lake. Making a great sweep around the wagons and people, Zimp turned from the sun and dived, homing in on her own wagon. Thinking momentarily that Oro would be there, Zimp glided while letting her entire body—legs, arms, torso, and head—change at once. She shifted and landed just outside the wagon.
    “What are you thinking?” Jessant asked as he watched her land. He stood a short distance away getting into his wagon.
    “There is no one around but our own scouts,” Zimp said.
    “Did you see any of them?” Jessant wanted to know.
    Zimp didn't answer.
    “Did you forget what happened this morning? We are not safe if anyone knows we are doublesight.”
    “We have already been found out,” she said.
    Jessant shook his head and continued to climb into his wagon. His wife, Soonta, peered out the back of the wagon at Zimp for a moment and shook her head. Zimp knew that she disapproved of flagrant image changes in broad daylight and in the open.
    The wagons proceeded away from the mouth of the Lorensak. The edge of the sun approached the horizon and the reflective mass of Brendern Eastlake. The wagons made long shadows across the grass. Brendern Forest treetops lifted into the sky several miles ahead of the clan.
    Zimp didn't say anything to Oro about her unprotected shift. And now, she felt embarrassed about doing it so blatantly in front of Arren. Shifting was an intimate act. Even though the crow clan was tight-knit, traveled well together, and often shifted en masse, a single purposeful shift like the one she did was like stripping down in front of someone. That private act showed her arrogance, something she wasn't proud of. She lowered her head and peered out of the wagon.
    Of the seven wagons, Oro's was in the center, the best protected. It was tethered to the wagon in front of it so that no driver was needed. Less than twenty-four hours ago, Zimp would have been arguing with her sister about something, or they would be laughing. Oro would be sleeping as she was now.
    Zimp crawled along the carpet to her sister's cot, the closest to the front. She lay down and rolled onto her stomach. She smelled Zora and buried her head into the soft fabric of the rolled blanket. With a long sigh and a sad heart, Zimp allowed herself a moment of tears. Her sister had only crossed over into the next realm. She had not left The Great Land forever. Of all the